Author

HELCOM RED LIST Biotope Expert Team

Textual description

Baltic photic zone bottoms with at least 90 % coverage of coarse sediment. Coarse sediment has less than 20 % of mud/silt/clay fraction (<63 µm), and the proportion of gravel and pebbles (grain size 2–63 mm) exceeds 30% of the combined gravel and sand fraction . Biomass of infaunal bivalves dominates and is highest in the group that includes infaunal bivalves/polychaetes/crustaceans/echinoderms/insect larvae. Ophelia spp. and Travisia forbesi constitute ≥10 %of the infaunal macrocommunity biomass when disregarding the biomass of bivalves.